IPL 2021 | RR vs DC - Hits & Flops as big-ticket Chris Morris snatches victory from Capitals
Rajasthan Royals managed to get themselves stuck in another game that went down the wire, a kind of game that once again needed a special innings from batsmen. This time though the heroes with the bat were David Miller and Chris Morris as the Delhi Capitals bowlers struggled to execute their yorkers in the last two overs. The win would taste sweeter for the Royals after having seen the last game slip away from their grasp from a similar situation. With the win, the Royals have opened their account in the 14th edition of the IPL while the Capitals will have to live with an even-steven situation having won and lost one game each so far. Here, we shall dissect the best and worst performances that swung the game in favour or against the sides in Mumbai. Hits Chris Morris “The most expensive buy of the Vivo IPL, shows it why,” said a booming Ian Bishop from the commentary box after Chris Morris slapped a rank full toss from Tom Curran over the fence to win the Rajasthan Royals a game that seemed too far away from them at the start. He was off to another slow start and could muster only seven runs from the first eight balls he faced. However, he had to take the game deep, considering there was no one other than him who could take the Royals home. The situation was a sort of Deja Vu for Morris, who was denied the opportunity to be a hero by his skipper for his lack of fluency in the last game. But this time, he had to be the protagonist and not a supporting cast if the Royals were to win. Things while being incredibly difficult offered a little respite in form of Jaydev Unadkat, whose day of redemption was not over at that point. He hit a big six to allow Morris to breathe easy and the game was down to 27 runs from the last two overs that included one of Kagiso Rabada. It was now or never for Morris, and he started spectacularly against Rabada with a big six over the cow corner. Another couple followed before Morris was helped again by his countryman with a leg-sidish delivery pitched in the slot. The right-hander hoicked it instinctively on the line of the ball and deposited the ball over the long-leg boundary to reduce the equation to a gettable 12 runs from the last over. A splendid drive through the left of the cover fielder and slow fielding from Prithvi Shaw allowed Morris to start the over with a couple. Curran took a big risk of bowling a back of the hand slower ball, but it went horribly wrong, both in terms of execution and deception of the batsman. It was pitched at the halfway mark and Morris picked it early enough to slam it over the square leg boundary. The equation was reduced to just four from four and Morris almost finished the game just the next ball but found Shikhar Dhawan in the middle of a ferocious cover drive that otherwise would have gone to the boundary. He did not take any chance next ball and Curran obliged with a juicy full toss and Morris deposited another six—his fourth of the night to announce his arrival in the IPL 2020 in a grand way. Morris has not been a big name in the IPL in the eyes of fans but franchises have shown desperation for the South Africa all-rounder. The night against the Capitals was just the evidence why he is rated so highly by IPL franchises as he is capable of delivering in the last overs of the games—both with the bat and the ball, which is quite a unique feat. David Miller David Miller seemed undroppable in the 2013-15 era of the Indian Premier League on the back of ferocious shots batting in the middle order for his side the then Kings XI Punjab. However, like, all good things, his success in the league too lasted for a limited period of time. As his runs started to dry up, he was shown the exit door from the Kings XI side in the mega auction. His reputation of being a deadly batsman earned him a contract from the Royals albeit the presence of contemporary greats such as the English trio of Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes hampered his chances of making a comeback in the playing XI. He could feature in the only one game for the Royals last season, but the team decided to stick to him. He repaid the faith shown on him in the very first opportunity after Ben Stokes got knocked out of the tournament with a broken hand. Miller walked out to bat in the middle of high intense new balls spell from Chris Woakes and Kagiso Rabada, who had just edged Samson behind the wicket in slip to peg back the Royals. He too did not go unexamined by the new ball pair of Capitals. However, he held his shape and when Rabada offered him a favourable length to work with, he put his stride out to dispatch the ball back past the bowler to get up and running. He survived a close call when his leading-edge fell just short of Marcus Stoinis at the cover. There was no looking back for Miller after that initial boundary and another boundary off Avesh Khan stabilised him at the crease although wickets kept on tumbling from the other end. Meanwhile, Rishabh Pant introduced Ravichandran Ashwin to prevent Miller from taking the game away from them. The move paid off as the off-spinner yielded only 14 runs from his first spell that lasted three overs. Miller was not looking puzzled at all and hit consecutive boundaries off Avesh Khan to keep the Royals in the hunt of a chase of 148 runs. The Royals were not going anywhere though before Marcus Stoinis was attacked in a tactical move to get a move on in the 13th over. The over yielded 15 runs for the Royals and Rahul Tewatia got into the act in the next over for another big over and the Royals were back on track in the chase. With Tewatia getting found out against the pace of Rabada, Miller decided to take the game to Avesh Khan to reduce the burden of risk against Rabada in the last couple of overs. First, he completed a 40-ball fifty to give the Royals a glimmer of hope in the game that seemed long gone from their grasp, and then, turned the clock back to his heydays with two back to back sixes between the mid-wicket and square leg region. His tactics backfired soon as Avesh Khan preempted a big shot after being hit for two sixes. His attempt of bowling a very full ball worked as Miller could not quite get underneath well enough to hit it over the park. His departure brought the Capitals ahead in the game once again but only to be thwarted away by a swashbuckling Morris in the end overs. Jaydev Unadkat Jaydev Unadkat is an IPL enigma. He has been very successful in the domestic circuit and has a proven track record of a bowler who possesses many tricks up his sleeves. He excelled in the 2017 edition of the league to lead the bowling attack of the then Rising Pune Supergiants to the finals that year. His stocks surged among IPL sides and he was picked by the Royals for a whopping Rs 11.5 crore in the auction before the next edition. The big money seemed to bring him down and the numbers started looking awful for a promising bowler with so many tricks in his arsenal. All this while, his numbers and performances in the domestic circuit has been top-notch and he led Saurashtra to their maiden Ranji Trophy title. However, his days of glory in the IPL were looking dommed. He saw a young Chetan Sakariya who played under him at Saurashtra getting a game ahead of him. But the injury to Ben Stokes and a subsequent rejigging of the playing XI offered him a path of redemption. He was up against the dominating pair of Prithvi Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan who were fresh from a ferocious partnership against the Chennai Super Kings that had bowlers similar to his style of bowling. After a tight over from Sakariya, Unadkat started to follow up with accuracy. Although, the variation was not far away and Shaw was early in a bid to get an upper hand. The big wicket of Shaw was a good enough start for the Royals, but Unadkat had a lot more in him. Having been bogged down by both Sakariya and Unadkat, Dhawan had to manufacture a shot and Unadkat preempted the move. Dhawan walked across outside his off stump like he was doing in the last game against the Super Kings, but only to find Unadkat more deceptive than his innovation. Unadkat was at the top of his game and flummoxed another batsman in Ajinkya Rahane, who, just like Dhawan, was looking to break free after a sluggish start. In his four-over quota, he bowled as many as 15 dot balls that crept discomfort in the Capitals top order resulting in false strokes against his variations. Excellency with the bowl was not enough for Unadkat and he had to do everything well for his side on the night against the Capitals. He walked out to bat with his side in a precarious situation needing 43 runs from the last 24 balls. He thumped a short delivery from Chris Woakes over long-leg to establish the night belonged to him— first with the ball and then with a supporting role with the bat. Flops Kagiso Rabada Amid all the hype surrounding Kagiso Rabada, there is a pattern emerging in his performances with the ball. Although he has lethal yorkers in his arsenal, he has not been able to execute them well on most occasions. Rabada was late to come into the Capitals camp and missed the first game. His place in the XI was never in doubt and he walked right in with a superb spell with the new ball. After Chris Woakes jolted the Royals with twin strikes in the third over, Rabada came onto the scene with the wicket of their skipper Sanju Samson, who single-handedly won the last game for his side. The delivery was a trademark one from Rabada as Samson was induced into playing a drive to a ball that was not full enough to be driven at. He was brought back with another over in the middle phase to break the back of the Royals’ chase and he delivered on cue of the call of skipper Pant with a short ball that got big on Rahul Tewatia. Although he bowled brilliantly with the new ball and in the middle phase of the game, he needed to deliver in the penultimate over of the game with the Royals needing 27 runs from the last 12 balls including six balls from him. But, he bowled deliveries in the slot to make things easier for Chris Morris and the Royals more or less settled the chase in his over only by plundering 15 runs off him. In the latter half of the last season, Rabada had gone off the boil and produced deliveries in hittable areas. He picked up a lot of wickets and that masked his inability to deny batsmen six-hitting deliveries in the last edition. The story was somewhat similar in the game against the Royals as his first three overs yielded only 15 runs and produced two wickets, while he conceded two sixes in his last over to give Royals a real shot in the arm. Shivam Dube After Hardik Pandya rose to prominence and went off the mark for a little bit of time due to poor fitness, Shivam Dube jumped many ladders at one go to earn a reckoning for a place in the Indian T20 side. However, his limitations were found out quickly and his slide away from the international arena was as swift as his rise. His performance in the IPL 2020 was abysmal to say the least as he was assigned the task of bowling only nine overs while his strike rate was a mere 122 per 100 balls. The poor performance led to the RCB releasing him from the squad before the auction earlier this year. Admirers of his ‘talent’ were not lost though, and the Royals snapped him up for a whopping Rs 4.4 crore that raised many eyebrows. The Royals management, especially the new director of cricket—Kumar Sangakkara has had high hopes on the all-rounder before the 14th edition of the league kicked off. He got ample opportunity to excel with both bat and bowl in the two games the Royals have played so far in this season. He has been able to manage only 23 runs from two innings at a horrible strike rate of 113 while his bowling has not inspired enough confidence in his skipper. He has bowled only one over in the season so far and conceded 20 runs off it to put a real question mark on if the Royals’ policy of backing him with a big price tag is backfiring on them. The Royals would be relieved to get off the mark with their first win in this season after enduring a hard to digest loss in the last game. The bowlers needed to rise to the occasion as they were without two of their marquee players—Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes, and they did just that against the Capitals. What they would be hoping for after this game would be some runs from the bat of Jos Buttler and Manan Vohra with the skipper Samson and Miller batting in supreme touch. The Delhi Capitals on the other hand would be disappointed for letting the game they should have won convincingly go away from them. However, they would need a reassessment of their bowling options in the last three overs as it has been a letdown for some matches now. It was a failure of the batting group after a dominating start of the season, and the pair of Ponting and Pant would not be too fussed about it for now.
 "Somya Kapoor")
